End of the Magic Era
chapter-1324

Chapter 1324: Heart of Stone

After lying on the ground for almost an hour, Sunny finally struggled back on her feet. The gray mist that wreathed her body had completely disappeared. There was red blood all over her dark red body. The cavern was filled up by an ominous vibe.

“Mafa Merlin, I will let you die! I will let all of you die! All of you will die…”

Sunny roared crazily, and summoned as many Screaming Ghosts as possible, not caring whether using too much power would wake up the underground monster. Sunny even suspected that there was no monster at all. She didn’t care even if there were, because all that she could think of was revenge…

By absorbing the bloodline of a hellish creature, she had been given the power of hell and death and the power to control some souls. Naturally, it was impossible for her not to have any fatal weaknesses after being given such power.

Her soul was no longer pure, and her body was most vulnerable. She didn’t even have the extraordinary power of a mage at all, or a strong body that many powerful warlocks had. She was formidable in certain aspects, but surprisingly vulnerable in other aspects.

Emmy had attracted a devil lord in hell exactly because of her special soul, which was no longer pure but still quite special. It was worth collecting for the devil lord that considered souls as collectibles.

Sunny had completely lost her rationality. She summoned the Screaming Ghosts, not caring about the consequences. Many other kinds of ghosts were mixed in among the Screaming Ghosts. They proliferated through the channels like a flood.

The number of the ghosts was shocking, but their level was too low. They were no different from the army insects earlier. The ominous vibe spread in the underground world along with the flowing wind.

On the other hand, Lin Yun wandered along a huge circle with his team, and suddenly felt wind from one of the channels. There was nothing wrong with the existence of wind, but its direction was strange…

“Reina, we were here a dozen hours ago. However, when we came last time, the wind flowed in the opposite direction. Right, am I correct?”

Lin Yun frowned and quietly examined the flow of wind. Ever since the beginning, he had been investing all his computation ability and attention into the calculation of the direction, and never noticed the flow of wind. The wind here seemed to be always circulating on fixed routes, and had never changed in so many days. However, after arriving at this place, Lin Yun suddenly realized something.

It was impossible for Lord Shawn or Xiuban to notice anything like this. Only Reina might have noticed it.

“The direction of the wind has indeed changed. Also, the temperature of the wind is slightly higher than before.”

Hearing Reina’s affirmation, Lin Yun put on a smile.

“Then I think I’ve found the direction. The change of the wind’s direction in this place only means one thing: we’re already very close to our destination.

“This is the monster’s breath. The closer we are to it, the more obvious it is. The change of the wind’s direction only means that the monster is exhaling instead of inhaling. It doesn’t breathe exactly the same as we do, but there are a lot of similarities. It inhales for three years, and then exhales for three years. We happened to encounter a change of the breathing pattern.”

Adding the wind direction and speed to his parameters, Lin Yun immediately figured out a route to his destination. Even though it was quite rough, it was enough for him to follow.

They continued moving forward. Very soon, everybody detected that the wind was blowing faster and faster, and the gravity was turning weird.

Walking in a channel, Lin Yun laid one of his feet on the wall, and put on a weird expression. He then raised his other leg and walked on the wall, but he felt no different from walking on the ground. Reaching the ceiling along the wall, he felt no different from standing on the ground, either. He raised his head, and saw that Xiuban and Reina were standing upside down like bats.

He came back to the ground from the other side of the wall, and didn’t notice any change of gravity. Here, the gravity seemed to have lost its vector. As long as one stood on solid ground, gravity would be able to pull them down.

“We’re almost there. The gravity here is in utter chaos. We’re only 1,000 meters away from our destination.”

Lin Yun was wearing a smile. This exploration had been smoother than expected. As long as he reached the destination, it would be possible to develop this plane. The magic crystals could be collected, the magic plants could be grown on a large scale, and it was even possible to let those giant reptiles produce special valuable materials such as the Golden Honey.

Half an hour later, they passed through another channel, and then took a turn. In front of them, there seemed to be a cliff and an enormous space that was at least 2,000 meters high ahead of it. Inside the space floated an enormous crystal that was 1,000 meters tall, and had to contain more than 100,000 facets.

The space was filled by gentle light. Copious mana had gathered into light of magic power in this place, and shone on the rocks and produced magic crystals everywhere. All the rocks in this 2,000-meter-tall space were covered in thick magic crystals.

Seeing the gargantuan crystal, everybody was astounded. Lord Shawn extended one of his claws, and pointed at it, stammering and shrieking.

“Oh my God, it’s a mana crystal! A mana crystal! Such a big one!”

Hardly had Lord Shawn shouted loudly when Lin Yun set up a soundproof barrier, and put it on Lord Shawn’s mouth.

“Damn it, Lord Shawn. Do you want to get all of us killed? We’ll be in serious trouble if that thing is woken up!”

Lord Shawn covered his mouth with his own claws. His eyes were shining so hard that they almost illuminated the environment.

“Damn it, this mana crystal is so big. How long will it take for me to eat it? No, it’s too big for me to bite. How can there be such a huge mana crystal? Damn it. Even the level-49 beasts, no, even the level-50 king beasts cannot possibly have such a huge mana crystal!

“Merlin, f*ck, you already knew this, didn’t you? What’s going on?”

Lin Yun looked at the enormous magic crystal with obvious shock too. It was hard to imagine the shock without seeing the mana crystal in person. Even the biggest mana crystal in Noscent was only the size of an adult’s fist.

The enormous beasts that were hundreds of meters long only had mana crystals the size of a fist. Even the space beasts that were dozens of kilometers long only had heart cores the size of a human head.

Mana crystals were condensed from the power inside a beast. The stronger a beast was, the more mana it would condense, and the density would be higher, but its size wouldn’t necessarily be huge.

The quality of a mana crystal could indicate the level of a beast. When seeing a mana crystal, everybody could infer which level of beasts the mana crystal was from.

It was impossible to form a mana crystal without enough mana. The enormous mana crystal here was definitely on the Heaven Rank, and it wasn’t a normal Heaven Rank mana crystal. In terms of quality, it was at least level-48.

However, even the mana crystals of 100,000 level-48 beasts combined couldn’t be this big.

“It’s the mana crystal of that monster. Yes. We’ve been inside the monster’s body. This plane and the earth under our feet are parts of the monster’s body.

“The monster was likely a space beast, until it perished due to some special changes. However, the space and mana inside its body had surprising changes. The blue sun was the cause and catalyst of all the changes.

“The mana and space, plus the space beast’s enormous body, presented an opportunity for this special plane to be born. It turned into a special beast. After being illuminated by the blue sun for millions of years, it had a mana crystal and generated a soul. It is a special life, and also a plane.

“Everything in this place is part of its body. This is its core. Until we arrive here, if we wake it up, we won’t be able to develop this plane before it falls asleep again.

“Opening a Planar Path here will wake up this special life. Waves of extraordinary power might wake it up too. The closer we’re to its soul, the more dangerous it will be.”

Everybody gazed at the glamorous enormous mana crystal that was in assorted colors, stunned. None of them heard anything that Lin Yun said.

Nobody had expected that this plane was a special creature by itself, or that such a huge mana crystal had been born underground.

Lin Yun walked to the edge of the cavern. When the wind raged, he felt like he was in an ocean of mana. With his every breath, the mana inside his body was replenished. The mages below the Heaven Rank might be drowned in mana just by breathing here.

Looking around from the exit of the cavern, Lin Yun found at least hundreds more exits in the stone wall of the enormous round space. He walked out on the stone wall, and he was still like he was standing on the ground. As he walked on the wall, the enormous crystal was hanging above his head like the sun from every perspective.

When he entered the exits underneath his feet, his body would be automatically lifted to the vertical direction. He couldn’t sense the change of gravity at all.

“We’re but little bugs to this big guy. It doesn’t care about us at all. As long as it doesn’t wake up, all the creatures in this plane are just vulnerable parasites to it.

“It only allows such vulnerable parasites to live here. It ignores the inferior reptiles that live in this plane. Real intelligent lives cannot be born in this place. It won’t allow them to be born.

“Drink the potion I gave you earlier. I’m about to get started.”

Lin Yun took a soft breath, and swallowed a dosage of potion. Xiuban, Reina, Lord Shawn, and Xiusi all had the potion that Lin Yun made specifically.

Any creature was like a parasite to this plane, which might unconsciously reject them. What Lin Yun was trying to do might cause such natural rejection.

If the monster was woken up, then there would be bigger problems. This potion was meant to prevent them from being rejected as threats.

Walking out of the enormous spherical space, Lin Yun took out the materials he had prepared in advance, and set up an alchemy array. This place was essentially the head of the monster where the mana crystal was stored. All the caverns and channels were keys to the circulation of mana across the plane.

The soul of this unique life was asleep inside the mana crystal. When it breathed with mana, the air flowed through the soil, and carried the magic radiance from the blue sun to itself.

The entire earth was the body of this strange creature, so there were barely any minerals in it. However, the magic radiance from the outside and the surging mana inside had caused the countless magic crystals to emerge below the ground.

As long as the enormous mana crystal remained underground, then countless more magical crystals would be generated in this plane.

All Lin Yun needed to do was to set up an alchemy array, and cut off the mana crystal’s link with the outside world. Then, the monster’s soul would lie dormant forever, and this plane could be developed like a normal plane.

In the future, it would be impossible to directly establish a Planar Path in this plane, because the monster would be woken up every time. People would have to construct a massive city in the void.

In the end, the method to keep the monster’s soul asleep forever was figured out. However, everybody was already used to that void city, which had turned into an important supply station in the boundless void.

Also, this plane was quite special. It wasn’t just a plane, but also a creature that had a gigantic body. A Planar Path here would be unstable, and might cause side effects to the plane. So, it was given up in the end.

Lin Yun laid a foundation for the alchemy array in the spherical space. He raised his head, and saw the enormous mana crystal floating above his head.

When the foundation of the alchemy array was half set up, a Screaming Ghost suddenly emerged from out of the holes. It was about to scream when it saw Lin Yun, but a tiny bit of magic power arose and controlled it. In the end, the Screaming Ghost dispersed into nothingness…

Lin Yun took a soft breath. He almost had cold sweat on his forehead…

In the place so close to the mana crystal, any attack on the mana crystal might wake up the monster immediately. Lin Yun had reached this place so smoothly only because the monster hadn’t seen any intruder, and wasn’t very vigilant. Even so, he was setting up the alchemy array with his bare hands, and didn’t dare to use any mana until the alchemy array was activated.

A level-25 Screaming Ghost was definitely able to wake up this monster over such a short distance…

Fortunately, he had discovered it fast enough, and destroyed the Screaming Ghost with pure mana.

When he eliminated the Screaming Ghost, Lin Yun remembered something, and put on an awful expression.

Now that one of the Screaming Ghosts had arrived here, Sunny couldn’t be very far away. At least, she already knew the route to this place…

Three seconds later, countless ghosts erupted from 30 holes around that hole. 1,000 of them appeared in less than one second. Even more ghosts were still erupting from the holes without stopping.

Seeing so many ghosts, Lin Yun turned around and ran off. He knew that there was no stopping them. Now that so many ghosts had appeared in this place, even if they didn’t attack at all, their aura of death was more than enough to wake up that monster…

Lin Yun had no time to care about not using magic power. Waves of mana glittered on his skin, and he jumped into one of the holes.

Immediately, the entire space was trembling. The gentle light from the enormous mana crystal suddenly became dazzling. The breath of mana was hastened too. A pure storm of mana was raised in this enormous spherical space.

The moment the storm was raised, half of the ghosts were torn into shreds. The storm became more and more powerful, and more and more ghosts were erupting from the holes.

All that those stupid ghosts could think of when they were attacked was to counterattack. They were determined to counterattack even if they couldn’t find the enemy.

One of the Screaming Ghosts started screaming. Immediately, all of them were screaming together. Countless Screaming Ghosts launched a soul blast together. The purest blast was gathered, and mixed with the storm of mana in this narrow space, forming a terrifying tornado that would tear anything apart.